


this year's for me and you

by stellahibernis



Series: an approximation of domesticity [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas is knocking on their door, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, softstuckyweek2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 09:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8974612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellahibernis/pseuds/stellahibernis
Summary: “You’re three minutes late,” Steve says, and flashes his phone.

  The screen says it’s 4:18 PM, and Bucky had texted earlier that he’d be back at quarter past four. So technically Steve is right, as well as exactly the kind of an asshole that would point it out. Bucky loves him more than he sometimes thinks should be possible.
This year Bucky wants a quiet Christmas at home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Soft Stucky Week 2016. This whole series is pretty much that, albeit this should work as a stand alone as well, like all of these.
> 
> Happy holidays to everyone!

Bucky pulls the door closed and checks the bolts, even if he knows the security system does it too. The feeling of safety floods into him, and he lets himself be conscious of the exhaustion as he adjusts the pack on his shoulder to prevent it from slipping. He’s been gone five days, and he’s barely slept since he left. He sways as the elevator takes him up, letting out the yawn that’s been threatening to escape since the previous day at least.

As he rises to the floor of their apartment, he sees through the gate that the door is open and Steve is leaning on the door frame. Bucky hefts his pack up once more and shuffles through the short corridor. He presses his palm on the scanner on the door that’s next to theirs, and sets the pack down on the floor of the reinforced weapons storage, making a mental note to put everything in their place later before turning to Steve.

“You’re three minutes late,” Steve says, and flashes his phone.

The screen says it’s 4:18 PM, and Bucky had texted earlier that he’d be back at quarter past four. So technically Steve is right, as well as exactly the kind of an asshole that would point it out. Bucky loves him more than he sometimes thinks should be possible.

There’s a slight furrow between Steve’s brows, a sure sign of worry, but Bucky always knew it would be there. Of course Steve worries when he leaves like he did five days ago, alone to go after HYDRA tendrils. It’s something Bucky needs to do, and needs to do by himself. He’s grateful that Steve understands and lets him, for all that he probably frets about it all the time Bucky’s gone. Hence, the least Bucky can do is accept the worry, and let Steve make sure he’s fine afterward.

He shuffles forward and Steve wraps his arms around him, solid and warm even through Bucky’s overcoat. Bucky buries his face in Steve’s neck and breaths in, letting not only the feeling of safety but home flood through him. It’s been decades and decades since Steve became his home, the only one he needed.

Steve pulls him inside and closes the door before starting to help him out of his heavy coat. There’s a smell of something delicious cooking in the oven, and Bucky feels like he could eat everything that’s edible in the house. He has been eating, it’s been drilled into his body to keep energy levels up on mission whenever possible, but it was all protein bars, which get no points for enjoyability.

Steve clicks his tongue and lets out an annoyed sigh as soon as he gets Bucky’s coat off, and Bucky remembers the tear on the right arm of his tactical jacket that must show the bandage. 

“It’s not that bad, really,” he says and finds he sounds defensive even if he’s actually telling the truth.

“Yeah, for one I’d prefer you not to be hurt at all, and secondly I know what you consider light injuries, so that’s not reassuring.”

As soon as Bucky has gotten rid of his boots Steve tugs him toward the bathroom, and Bucky follows, since he’s coated with enough grime that shower is definitely the first item on his list. Probably for Steve too, considering that at some point Bucky apparently managed to smear something dark on his neck, and there are streaks on his forearm where Bucky grabbed at him earlier.

“I’d say you’re as bad as me when it comes to what you consider light injuries when they’re on you,” Bucky has to point out.

Steve glances at him, a wry smile on his lips. “You’re probably right.”

The admittance is another clear sign that Steve has been worrying.

“Guess you’ll need to have a look then.”

“Shower first, no sense in changing bandages right before,” Steve counters.

“Right, well, you should definitely come too, you’re all dirty,” Bucky says and very deliberately smears more dirt on Steve’s arm.

Soon they’re standing under the the spray, and Steve meticulously goes over Bucky’s body, checking all the bumps and bruises for broken bones. At least there are none of those this time, but he does have an incredibly impressive bruise going from his left hip down to almost knee. 

“Jesus, what is this?” Steve asks while he’s shampooing the gunk out of Bucky’s hair.

“You don’t want to know.  _ I _ don’t want to know,” Bucky answers, leaning onto the tile, enjoying Steve’s fingers against his scalp. 

After showering Steve sits him down on the toilet and carefully peels the bandages off Bucky’s arm. It’s a slash on his bicep, not deep at all and Bucky already glued it shut. Steve checks the edges of the wound and clearly decides it doesn’t need stitches before taping a clean bandage over it.

There are roasted beef ribs, potatoes and vegetables just about ready when they’re dressed, and they eat it all at the breakfast bar with a bottle of red wine that’s better than anything they could have dreamed of back before the war, but still can’t compete with the one they were given on a farm in France summer of 1944. Nothing ever does, and Bucky doesn’t know whether the wine was actually that good, or if it was just good in comparison to everything else that was happening. Only thing he knows is he and Steve agree about the wine.

Bucky is dead tired but he knows he won’t sleep yet, no matter how he’d try. Too jittery, too anxious to banish where he was from his head now that he’s at home. Steve takes a look at him at the end of the dinner and pushes him toward the couch and goes to tinker with something in the kitchen, coming to Bucky a moment later with hot chocolate and three kinds of fudge and chocolate covered nuts, clearly on the mission to see whether the two of them can have too much sugar. Last thing he does is light up the candles on the table and lower the lights before settling down next to Bucky.

Bucky sips at his hot chocolate, curled in the corner of the couch covered with a blanket, Steve’s hand resting on his ankle. He feels warm, finally, after days spent in the northern December weather. He’s practiced ignoring the cold, and it doesn’t really hinder him, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it, or that he likes it. There is calmness that he feels in the cold sometimes, but it’s not the kind of calm he wants here, at home with Steve. It’s started to snow outside, for the first time that winter, a little later than usual on the 23rd. Maybe it will be a white Christmas after all. 

“I don’t want to reminisce,” Bucky says into the comfortable quiet.

Steve looks at him, a question in his eyes. He’s completely relaxed, slouching down with his feet on the coffee table, head resting on the back of the couch. It makes Bucky feel incrementally more relaxed as well, the tension leaving his shoulders.

“I just,” Bucky continues, “over Christmas people tend to think back, toward past. Nostalgia. I don’t want that, I want to focus on the now.”

The unsaid implication being that after everything, this could become the best Christmas he remembers. He knows he probably had good ones as a child, but they’re all a mix and match now, faded images in his head.

Steve looks at him as he sometimes does, his eyes softening in a way Bucky always has just a tiny bit of a hard time to bear, and takes the empty mug from him and puts them both on the table, moves the candy tray on the couch within Bucky’s reach and tugs at his ankle so he turns. Steve arranges himself between Bucky’s legs, chest to stomach, head resting on his shoulder. Bucky pulls the blanket back over them and it’s immediately warm and toasty, Steve’s hands working their way under his ribs.

Bucky rests his chin on top of Steve’s head, and that moment right then, it’s perfection.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” Steve says, continuing their disjointed conversation.

They don’t talk, just rest and watch the candle flames. Every now and then Steve opens his mouth in a silent request and Bucky picks a piece of candy and feeds it to him. He’s getting drowsy, and he’ll probably be able to sleep just fine at their normal hour of going to bed. 

“To be fair,” Steve says and swallows the bit of fudge he’d been chewing, a hint of laughter in his voice, “not like we took a gander down the memory lane last year either.”

Bucky huffs. “True, but that’s not the kind of Christmas I want this year, or any year for that matter.”

The year before the Avengers hadn’t had time to celebrate, since a group of aliens in a complete disregard of Earth holidays had appeared on Christmas Eve to wreak havoc. They’d been some sort of mercenaries, looking for loot instead of a full scale invasion, so while it wasn’t as massive as the attack in New York, it had taken longer to handle because they didn’t really have any kind of central command.

It had been a week and a change of fighting, and they’d come back home on New Year’s morning, fully exhausted, and had proceeded to sleep until the next day. Then they’d ordered a mountain of takeout and had spent the next three days eating, sleeping and fucking, not getting dressed at all. It hadn’t been too bad of a start for the year, but Bucky doesn’t really want a repeat. At least the Earthly criminals seem oddly considerate of the holidays.

Bucky also vastly prefers where he and Steve are now instead of back then. It had only been a couple of weeks since the time Bucky came to visit Steve and never left, and even if Bucky had known they were solid, everything had still been new and seemingly fragile while they were finding their footing within their changed relationship. Fighting back to back had been the same, everything else had been odd. 

Now they’ve fit themselves together again, in this new kind of existence where they are different kind of men they thought they could be before the war, but are closer than ever, more open and honest.

“Everything okay?” Steve asks.

Bucky knows what he means, Steve knows the mind space where his solitary treks leave Bucky, and sometimes it feels like he’s almost more conscious of it than Bucky himself. Bucky thinks of it, and finds himself in peace. There probably won’t even be nightmares.

“Fine. And you?”

“Perfect now,” Steve says, and it’s weird how just a couple of words can warm so much.

“I’m sorry I have to go sometimes,” Bucky says, and realizes it’s the first time he’s actually said it instead of just implied.

Steve reaches up and kisses Bucky on the jaw.

“No need to be. And thank you for telling me, before.”

That too had been the first time. Usually Bucky has just disappeared, left a note or a text to tell Steve not to worry. He knows perfectly well why, there always had been the underlying expectation of Steve wanting to tag along or talk him out of going, and he couldn’t then, and probably couldn’t now handle it. He’d still told Steve this time, had let Steve see him packing and getting ready, because he’d finally made himself believe Steve wouldn’t stop him.

Steve hadn’t, and maybe one of these days Bucky’s instincts will believe the way his head already knows, that Steve is always worthy of trust.

Steve had kissed him as he was about to leave, the tactical gear a contrast to Steve’s sweats and hoodie, and told him to be careful and do what he needed to do. It’s even more of a warming thought; how impossible it should be to be understood so perfectly, and yet it happens.

Bucky pulls Steve up a bit, toward him, and the kiss is slow and easy and heated, Steve’s fingers pressing into his sides and Bucky’s body immediately tingling. Steve presses his hips against Bucky’s and he can feel Steve hardening through the soft cotton of their sweatpants. He runs his hand down Steve’s back and up again, bunching up his shirt as he goes to get to skin while opening his mouth to let Steve in.

Bucky distantly thinks they’ll probably end up overturning the candy tray, but he doesn’t care one bit.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [tumblr](http://stellahibernis.tumblr.com/)


End file.
